


The Ghosts of the Maria

by bioluminesce



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Female Friendship, Game: Destiny 2: Shadowkeep DLC, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/pseuds/bioluminesce
Summary: Your name is Eyahn, and you are a Hunter, and you are assigned to dispel nightmares on the Moon.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenCforCarolina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/gifts).



> This is a choose-your-own adventure story. The very simple branches allow you to follow either a story with mostly canon characters or a story focused on two OCs. Navigate using the chapter menu.
> 
> It is also a secret Santa gift for the Titan without whom this Warlock would not have defeated the foes we did. Enjoy!

Your name is Eyahn, and you are a Hunter, and you do not want to go to the Moon.

You’re old. The age sits lightly on you, but you’re old enough you remember the Interdict, how the Moon was closed because of the terrible things that lived in the caves. Now, with Guardians traveling to and from the Moon every day, you still don’t quite understand what it has to do with you. You like to protect Earth.

But Zavala asked you to go, to help dispel new ghosts reported to be haunting Eris Morn. She is always haunted, you understand. But it is a matter of degree. The nightmares on the moon are alien, maybe capable of distorting time and reality. Especially with Ikora building a Vex gate in the Tower, you understand that the commander must be stressed. He must be feeling alone. He wants help.

But you? You stand at the edge of the hangar, twisting your fingers together under your enveloping cloak. Even being around this many Guardians is strange. You want to be in the catwalks above, looking down at people, where you can be secure. Someone is supposed to meet you here: Kass, another Guardian the Vanguard trusts. You can already see her; she’s a Warlock in a white coat heavy with Arc conductors, waiting with a sense of contained energy near the docks. She doesn’t seem to notice you’re approaching your intended meeting place.

That gives you more time to think. You aren’t even sure you should go to the Moon. Even in the Red War, you never left the City. Sure, you sunk weeks into rebuilding after the Light was taken, but even that was never about the Traveler. It was about the people you helped—Cayde and Serac and the civilians.

Yesterday, your biggest worry had been whether the Drifter would hurt any of the Guardians you ran Gambit with. Today, you know the ancient enemy of the Traveler is awake and talking to people in an unnatural, dark canyon. It terrifies you. Choices make you freeze, sometimes, and this choice is so important. You’re so old, but you’re also so young.

You start to move toward the stairs, to get a better view of Kass.

But, no. You hesitate. You can’t lie to yourself. You wouldn’t be climbing the stairs to get a better view. You would be running away, even for just meters, and you certainly have never been comfortable with that. You fold your arms to keep your hands from twisting. To go to the Moon, where you might be lost, or to stay comfortably on Earth, where you know you can protect people?

You can’t make this decision alone.

_Option 1: You could delay, and go talk to Lord Shaxx. He always got along well with you, especially since you joined the Redjacks. [Choose chapter 2.]_

_Option 2: No time to delay. If Zavala trusts the Warlock assigned to help you, you can too. You hear she’s the one who discovered the thing at the heart of the Pyramid. Go talk to her. [Choose chapter 3.]_


	2. Chapter 2

Shaxx has always given you solid advice before, and there’s no rush to get to the moon. Kass won't leave without you, and the moon will be equally haunted no matter when you go. It’s no work at all to get into the vents above the hangar without anyone paying you any attention. You climb through the vents and construction access ways of the Tower until you end up above Shaxx’s alcove. You wait until no other Guardians are conducting business with him before dropping down from the ceiling. Some pigeons flutter away, surprised by your approach. You can still hear the mutter of people from around the corner.

“Hello, little one!” Shaxx booms. “Do you have a question?”

“How could you tell?” You ask.

“I know you.”

You stand straight, square your shoulders. “I have been assigned a difficult mission. Since it pertains to a battlefield on which I don’t usually operate, I thought I would ask your advice.”

“What is this battlefield?” Shaxx plants his hands on his hips.

“The Moon.”

“Ah. You will not be alone there. Several frames have been assigned to help Eris Morn stake her claim. You’re a brave one, and formidable on your own. But doesn’t it help to know you won’t be?”

He opens his arms. You rush forward and jump up to him. You’re small enough that you can rest your neck and shoulders on one of his shoulders, wrapping your arms as far as you can around his neck and arm.

“Be strong, little one,” he rumbles. “You always are.”

You walk back to the hangar without the urge to retreat to the rafters. 

_ [Go to chapter 4.] _


	3. Chapter 3

You cross the hangar quietly. Walking heel-toe, few people could hear you coming unless you wanted them to. Warlocks, though, tend to add unexpected wrinkles to the plan. They say some can hear thoughts, but you aren’t sure if that’s literal or metaphorical, complaint or boast. You know _of_ this one, but you don’t know _her_ , and the difference is so very important. She doesn’t play Gambit; that you know for sure. In your estimation, that’s a sign of good judgement but also a bit of inflexibility. You aren’t keen on the idea of _ignoring_ the dangerous things happening inside the very Tower you live to protect.

But she knows the Moon. She found the Pyramid on the Moon and escaped it alive, and that counts for something.

Just like you expected and feared, she hears you coming. She turns around. “A fine afternoon. Do you think it will be the same on Luna?”

You do not know what to say. “I’m ready to go.”

As usual, Star comes to your rescue. The Ghost pops into existence just in front of your left shoulder. In polite response, Kass’ Ghost appears wreathed in the same green fire Eris Morn held.

“Shaxx says he trusts you,” Star chirps.

Kass smiles, dimpling her pale visage. “Thank you. Surprising, with how rarely I’ve been in Crucible lately. Fighting other Guardians has been … distasteful.” Kass looks like she was thinking about something, but you do not know what. And perhaps all Warlocks had perfected the art of looking like they were thinking about something. Maybe there was a class for it. It’s likely she learned that particular droop of the eyelids, that particular angle of the chin, from Ikora. After a few heartbeats, she says, “You don’t have to talk.”

You don’t want to. But nor do you want to ignore this tall, serene person, so you give her a solemn nod.

To her credit, Kass doesn’t chat much as you sit in the passenger seat of her jumpship. You ask her once, tentatively, whether she plays Gambit. It’s become an easy topic of conversation. Either people don’t play, in which case you usually respect their reasons for doing so, or they do, and you know by now well enough how to gossip about players and Prime teams and where exactly those motes you collect are going. Kass does not play Gambit. You respect her for this, and the silence grows. You look out the window, past the graceful metal tines of Star, and see the mottled, silver face of the embattled satellite approaching.

_ [Go to chapter 4.]  _


	4. Chapter 4

The Moon’s horizon stretches stark and dark in front of you. When humanity first left their planet, they came here, to the closest satellite, which at the time was a dead stone. Orbiting had smoothed the stone into a sphere in the pocket of the Earth, worried at by the hands of her gravity, commuting with her around the hissing, spitting fire of the sun. Stepping onto the Earth was the first step humanity took that lead them directly onto the path of the creation of your people, the Awoken, the ones who discovered that space can change people in more ways than muscle loss and radiation burn.

So you take your first step onto the moon delicately, trying to savor the fleeting moment, while Kass walks heavily down the ramp in her rustling cloak studded with Arc conductors. She has directed you to a platform right in front of Eris Morn, whom you have not seen in many years.

As you approach Eris you notice that she looks very similar to the way she did years ago, no new lines on her face or a new set of equipment more suitable to her current mission. Or perhaps you cannot recognize the power of Eris’ type of magic for what it is; her clothing is the same, but there are new vials of potions or medicines or rations at her waist, and a bowl near her spits with green fire. Perhaps she could make a shield as strong as a Titan’s, and you would never know what energy she draws it from.

After you have scanned her, your gaze roams across the surface of the moon itself, and you’re filled with lightness, wonder, serenity, and an excitement you know can be difficult to parse from fear. This is a built-up part of the satellite. The magnetic accelerator once used by Golden Age colonists to shoot cargo into space cuts across the view of the horizon when you crane your neck to look behind you. In front, you have a slightly better view of the moon as it would have been “wild”—the sharp-edged mountains pushing into the black, star-flecked sky; the distant haze of the atmosphere, about as thin as the top of the Rocky Mountains; and the regolith itself, churned into darker and lighter grays by sparrows and heavier cargo haulers from this era and the previous ones. Tracks do not fade on the moon, you remember reading once, and while this is not as true now that Guardians walk in so many wild places on Earth’s satellite, you feel the idea of it sums up the stark beauty of the moon. Little happens here, but when it does, it makes a mark that lasts for centuries.

Guardians on sparrow bikes are coming back and forth over the hill where Eris has set up camp. To your great relief, a frame is overseeing a computer and humming to itself as you follow Kass up the hill toward Eris.

You’re focused on the back of Kass’ shoulders, trying to compose yourself before the meeting with the unsettling Eris, when the Light flares. You’re filled with despair. You will not help Eris. You’re only here because no one better was available, all the more _normal_ Guardians doing something else.

This is not your despair.

It comes from two specters which appeared out of nowhere and are now gliding toward the platform. These are the ghosts everyone has said are haunting the moon, and they’re better formed than you expected. Each could be a Guardian in armor, with the silhouette of a cloak here and a cuirass there. You set the despair aside by telling it that you have set it aside. You draw a knife and hold it low, not sure whether this is the right way to fight a ghost or not. Kass notices and stops so you catch up to her, both of you loose and ready to fight.

“They can’t be killed the usual way,” Kass says. “It takes a talisman, something they remember from life, and a strong will to dispel them.”

_A strong will._ You know you have that, even if you aren’t certain about the other part.

You mirror Kass, noting the efficiency with which she touches what once was Shin Malphur’s gun.

The two spirits approach slowly, inexorably. By coincidence or magic, the road is empty of Guardians. Eris sees the spirits’ intentional, measured approach and begins to stalk forward, raising the green fire she perpetually carries in her left hand.

“Two ghosts,” Kass says. “One for each of us. Eris may need your help as much as I do.”

She speaks in a measured tone that you resent just a tiny bit because of how she phrased the words. For a fireteam commander, the instruction was unclear. Can you help both of them at one time? Should you? For now, they are standing at opposite ends of the small rise that leads up to Eris’ workshop. You will have to pick one. ****

_Option 1: You were assigned to help Eris, and believe in helping those who are most vulnerable. Since she is without a Ghost, that person in this situation is undoubtedly Eris. Help Eris dispel her nightmare. [Choose chapter 5.]_

_Option 2: You were also assigned to help Kass, and are curious about what the supposedly noblest of the Guardians will confront. Help Kass dispel her nightmare. [Choose chapter 6.]_


	5. Chapter 5

By the time you reach Eris, the nightmare has reached her too. The two of them stand, frozen, looking at one another. When you get closer, you feel a moment of a pressure or a touch against your skin, as if you had bowed your face under water. It reminds you of the Blind Well, and you wonder why. Do Eris or the nightmares have some kind of connection to the Dreaming City’s magic? You wrench your thoughts back to the present. It isn’t difficult to do so, because now that you’re within two steps of Eris, your knife still in your hand, and have passed through the invisible barrier, you can hear the nightmare specter speak.

It isn’t speaking to you. Its voice echoes as if it fills up the tumbled lunar mountainside on which you stand, or as if it stands within a much smaller space.

Eris cringes, hunching her shoulders so they almost touch the side of her head, but her voice is as clear and deep as you remember it. “Do not do this to me again! Was torturing me with the memories of my friends not enough?”

You make the mental note you always do before battle, that you know where your Ghost is and that she is protected in a pocket of space. You know Eris has lost her teammates, but not much more detail about them. Is this another one from an era you do not know much about?

“Was I the catalyst?” The specter has a woman’s voice, rich and soft, and now you recognize the shape of Titan armor. “If I had not gone to Mare Imbrium, would they all have failed?”

Eris straightened. “Ah…” She stretched out the word in relief. “Now, this one I know is just a shadow of the truth. Wei Ning would never blame herself. Not in front of me.”

“How can I help you?” You ask.

Eris looks at you as if seeing you for the first time. The red edges of the specter burn and flare like the surface of the sun. Standing this close to one creates a feeling of heaviness and pressure, and you gain a new appreciation for Eris having lived with five of these yoked to her neck. She doesn’t answer. You aren’t sure why you are here. Lord Shaxx said you could be strong, but you’re out of your element here, without a body to attack. But if you don’t face this, you’ll be letting him down.

“Yes,” Eris says. It isn’t exactly an answer to your question, but you’re used to her talking as if she’s distracted, as if she’s having a slightly different conversation than the one you started. “I already prepared—”

The nightmare screeches, a death rattle you want to cover your ears against. “You have driven me to this,” it says. “The Guardian strength I had is gone! Just like yours. You are lesser than they are, Eris. You cannot, will not ever have the Light they have.”

You—Eyahn, you who do not speak at the rhythm of so many of your comrades—feel heaviness again.

Eris says, “Go to the lectern. Please. Bring me the translucent yellow shard of plate glass.”

You go. You are lesser than other Guardians are. You cannot, will not ever have the Light they have. And you do not need it to go; you do not need it to reach the lectern and feel among the tens of odds and ends there. There’s something terrible about how far you can go without either Light or hope. But Eris has been preparing. Every day, Eris has been looking for trash on the Moon that is actually an object of historical significance, or, more accurately, a possession of the dead. She needed the Young Wolf to help dispel the ghosts of her closest friends. But afterward, she prepared for the ghosts she knew might be dragged from the grave for her.

So here it is. You scrabble for it. A yellow curve of glass from a helmet, its edges broken along hexagonal shatter points. You bring it back. (There’s something terrible about how far you can go without hope. In the back of your head, you’re trying to run stats: _this_ proximity to a nightmare for _this_ time create _this_ feeling of despair.)

On your way down the hill you see Kass, gesturing toward the other nightmare. You cannot tell whether the gesture is a powerful ward or emphasis placed on a miserable argument.

When you return to her, Eris is slumped over. She looks down at the ground as she speaks, not to you, but to the nightmare. “We all followed you, because Eriana followed you. If she had not loved you, our lives would be so different.”

You hold the piece of glass out to her and wait for her to take it. She does so without looking up. You watch, as if watching a slow and momentous moment like the breaking of a dam, as her shaking fingers reach the plate and touch it and tug it from your loosening grip.

Eris holds it up. You can see the red of the nightmare’s body, distorted through the yellow glass. Only after she can look through the shard as if it is still a visor does she straighten her back and raise her head.

“This was once yours,” she says. “Eriana loved to see this, because she knew it meant you were by her side. It reminds me that you are not real, even though this pain is real. That pain is a hue seen though colored glass. I change it, whatever thing you are. I do not give you the courtesy of the name.” She pushes the glass forward. “I _change_ you.”

The nightmare dissipates.

Eris sighs. She turns to look at you, but you can hardly see her your gaze is stuck somewhere on the magnetic accelerator or the horizon beyond it or the stars beyond that. Your despair has disappeared like a change in weather, no one particular moment where you can tell it has finally stopped, but no doubt a change.

“Despair is like death,” Eris says. “It is a temporary condition.”

You can feel that now. You can feel the way your interest in the moon waned. You can feel the interest coming again: the caves still worth exploring, even if or because they are filled with strange fruits.

* * *

You return to the Tower. You sit comfortably with Kass on the way back, who fought her own demons and seems clarified, bronzed to a shine, by having defeated them. You talk to Lord Shaxx. You curl up in your nest when it’s all over, and breath deeply, and try to force time to crystalize around you. When it doesn’t, you breathe deeply again until you stop wanting time to stop.

You think of Eris’ words, of how many things in Guardians’ lives are temporary conditions even though you are immortal. You pull blankets up to your chin and feel a metal wall against your back, slowly warming to the temperature of your skin. There is one last image of the nightmare, the tattered red outline of it, and then you close your eyes, and sleep.

_[End.]_


	6. Chapter 6

You stand your ground, unwilling to leave Kass' side. You were assigned to help her as much as to help Eris, and besides, you’re intrigued and warmed by stories you hear about the 'hero of the Red War'. You also feel like you still don’t know her. How are you supposed to help someone whose preferences and history you know so little about? You unsling your weapon and face Kass’ foe regardless.

The red smear of fog, the scarlet and black reminding you terribly of blood, coalescence into a shape wearing unique robes. You don’t, at first, think of the fact that the Speaker is truly dead, or that recent years have called into question the idea of whether the Traveler ever spoke to him at all. Instead, you think of when you were a young Guardian, and the Speaker stood by the orrery in a courtyard filled with sun and bronze.

“It has been a long time,” says the nightmare of the Speaker.

Kass keeps a hand on her gun and her voice steady. “This isn’t real. Eris dispelled her spirits by giving them tokens.”

“You failed me, you know.” The old voice speaks in notes of disappointment and betrayal.

Kass glances at you. “I do not have a token for him. The only thing left of his is one empty room I could not have known to visit.”

You do not know what to say, and so comfortably say nothing.

“You failed me twice,” says the nightmare of the Speaker. “Once by letting Ghaul’s forces keep me, and once by stealing the Sun’s Light for yourself. You’re no better than the Cabal Empire. Everyone should have known you would kill Prince Uldren without a second thought. You’re a murderer hiding your crimes behind the Light. I should never have welcomed you.”

Kass’ voice wavers. “I thought I was doing the right thing …”

“The Light,” you say. You remember now where you had seen Kass recently. Kass had been training with Ikora. Guardians gathered. You crawled through vents and found a perch on the side of a high Wall alley. People peered down from balconies and guardrails as the two powerful Warlocks threw Solar energy at one another and passed it back and forth like a ribbon dance. This fight was not only remarkable because Ikora was involved, although that would itself have been enough to draw Crucible-arena-sized crowds if it had been advertised. The other draw was Kass was overflowing with Light. Her Solar energy had been locked into a perpetual motion draw when she had fought too close to the Sun in her effort to destroy Ghaul’s doomsday machine. The power would eat her up if it didn’t fade away. So the two Warlocks tested Kass’ perpetually burning fire to find out what might stop it from eating its host alive.

Ikora and Kass had succeeded in that. It was quite possible that whole rooms full of Warlocks were debating what exactly had happened to one of their own on the sun-eating machine, although you do not know for certain and are not eager to find out.

“The Light can be the relic of the Speaker,” you insist.

She doesn’t respond, and at first you’re worried you’ve said something wrong, implied something wrong. Then a Solar sword lights in her hands with a hiss and bloom of indrawn air. Heat washes through your armor. You unsling our gun, ready to fight if that’s the metaphor Kass plans to walk into in the next second.

It isn’t. She holds the sword out, flat, one hand supporting the end of the blade like a knight in a painting. Orange flame licks the red fog and drops to the ground, sizzling out. "You taught me why to use this," Kass says. "I knew how. I needed to know why. But that wasn't really you." 

The Nightmare disappears just as fast as the sparks go out. You don’t bother searching its face for an expression, although you think that maybe Kass did. That wasn’t, after all, really the Speaker. Maybe Kass thinks it made good points. Maybe dark things do, if you move too far outside yourself to meet them where they are.

Either way, it disappears, and the sparks fade. Kass douses the sword with a sizzle of Light like metal dunked into water. You hurry toward Eris, toward another job not yet done, but she has dispelled the second phantom herself; she stands bowed but unbroken in front of her strange witch’s brew. Kass hurries to her.

You hang back, and a moment later you realize Kass’ Ghost has hung back too. He looks at you from inside a plain, white shell. Star perches on your shoulder, perhaps expecting the polite Ghost-to-Ghost conversation the A.I. companions often initiated just to the side of their Guardians. But that isn’t what he says.

“Thank you. It’s hard to tell, but she’s been going through a hard time," says Kass' Ghost.

“You’re welcome,” you say warmly. You don’t know how else to reply, but it seems to work. The Ghost spins contentedly.

* * *

After Eris and Kass talk, you return to the Tower. You, neither of you, like to make small talk. But you worry over and over at the idea that her life has been hard. You ask her how the temple is doing, because you heard, from Tower gossip, that the hero of the Red War has become a monk at a Traveler temple after the much-debated death of Uldren Sov. She tells you Eris brought you back, but that it was a difficult decision. She tells you that she sleeps in one of the many, many one-room Tower apartments allotted to Guardians. She tells you she was offered a suite space but did not take it, because she feared it would encourage her to remain a recluse, simply in a different location with a different type of Traveler-worship.

You see the indecision in her, the lack of a home she can be certain of, and think of how safe you feel in your own bed and how lost you would be without a place to claim.

It isn’t friendship, exactly; the two of you are both slow to open up. But the two Ghosts talk. You see them orbit one another once, a hectic, joyful spin punctuating a conversation that my have nothing to do with the two Guardians.

When you get back to the Tower you invite her to join you for your debrief with Shaxx, and she agrees.

_[End.]_


End file.
